LED based lighting has increasingly become an attractive mode of lighting used for many purposes. One of the advantages of LED lighting is the ability to create long linear runs of individual LED elements which are wired into LED light strips. LED light strips can take many forms, but most have a narrow width and a continuous length which can be divided into smaller sections whose lengths vary, but are usually under six inches in length. These LED light strips are flat and produce light with a wide beam angle and are well suited to a variety of applications. Usually these LED light strips are composed of a flexible printed circuit which is printed on a thin flexible substrate where that substrate is not much wider than the LED elements themselves. This is convenient in that the resulting LED light strip is itself narrow, and can be installed without taking up much room. A drawback to this approach is that the conductors must also be narrow, and consequently they cannot carry very much power. This limits the length an LED light strip can run before it must be re-powered, often to 10 meters or less. This is most often due to voltage drop, or the resistive losses associated with running too much power through too small conductors. An LED light strip which could find the area within which to run large conductors while still maintaining the advantage of a narrow profile would be desirable.
LED light strips have a great advantage in their ability to vary the length of an installation in small increments. This is due to LED light strips being designed as a continuous strip of individual sections, where the individual sections are inches long and can be separated at any point within a strip of sections, as long as each section is complete from end to end. This means an installation whose LED light strip individual sections are four inches long, can be any length that is a multiple of four inches, up to its power limitations. This modularity is desirable, and is made possible by the clip systems (sometimes called connectors) many LED light strip systems use. Some LED light strip systems still use a direct solder connection method, but those are less desirable and becoming less common. A clip system usually uses a plastic clip which closes over the end of one LED light strip section, where it makes electrical contact with the LED light strip and can thereby deliver power or control signals such as dimming level. These clip systems, while increasing convenience also need space to connect their wires, whether from a power supply or a controller. This means that if a clip is to be installed in the middle of an existing continuous installation of LED light strip sections which have not been separated, the LED light strip would have to be cut between sections, and then at least one of the two resulting LED light strip sections would need to be moved to create the needed space for the clip between the previously connected sections. This could require removing and reinstalling a significant portion of an LED light strip installation every time one or more clips must be installed.
The need to create space between newly separated LED light strip sections for clip installation is particularly problematic when replacing a broken or defective section of LED light strip, since a replacement section for the defective section must have a clip to connect the section to the existing installation at each end of the replacement section, requiring significant modification to the original installation. An improved LED light strip system would allow for clip installation without changing the length of an installation, whether in the design phase, during repair and replacement, or during reconfiguration changes.
Another challenge of LED light strips is that their structure is not very durable or strong. Further, the installation method most commonly used is double-sided tape applied to the surface the LED light strip is to be mounted on and to the rear of the LED light strip. Such an installation does not provide a high degree of mechanical security to an installation, and makes service, repair and reconfiguration more difficult. An improved LED light strip system would provide a mechanically secure installation which can be serviced, repaired and reconfigured without modification to the original installation location. Mechanical security of a lighting system is of particular importance if the lighting system is to provide emergency lighting, such as lighting in egress passageways of commercial buildings.
An ideal lighting system would be one that combines the convenience and flexibility of current LED light strips with the mechanical and electrical security of a commercial grade lighting fixture.